The invention relates to a cooking pot including a container with an outwardly bent, peripheral container rim, a lid that can be set on the container and a closing mechanism with at least one closing element which is mounted on the lid, preferably in the region of a rim thereof. The closing element can be pivoted from an open position releasing the lid relative to the container, around a swivel axis extending somewhat parallel to an outer edge of the container rim or to a tangent of the container rim, into a locking position whereat the closing element reaches under the container rim to lock the lid pressure tight with respect to the container.
A cooking pot of this type is known, wherein hook-shaped closing elements, which can be pivoted at the lid individually around an axis, have hook-shaped segments extending under the container rim when the lid is set on the container. In this manner, a reliable seal of the cooking pot cannot be obtained however. In addition, the individual closing elements have to be folded over the container rim by tedious operations. There is no safety feature to prevent opening the container while the container is still under pressure.
A cooking pot disclosed in DE-OS 32 32 907 includes a container for the product to be cooked with a peripheral rim and a lid which is divided and comprises essentially a circular hood and a frame which is concentric to the hood and reaches overlappingly under the hood. In the region of the frame are disposed several U-shaped claims which are distributed uniformly over its circumference and which envelop the frame and container rim in the closed position. Between the frame and the container rim is arranged a sealing profile. The hood and the frame are tensioned with respect to each other by way of springs distributed over the circumference of the lid, and the springs simultaneously act axially on the clamps. To open this steam pressure cooker, pressure must be applied first from the top on the handle of the lid. Subsequently, the hood can be pushed downwardly relative to the frame against the force of the springs. At the same time bottom legs of the U-shaped clamps are released from the rim of the container. By means of additional pressure on the handle and thus on the hood, blocking elements issue from boreholes in the frame. Then, the hood can be twisted relative to the frame. In so doing, the clamps move essentially outwardly in the radial direction and their bottom legs free themselves from the rim of the container, so that the lid can be removed. The closing mechanism thus includes quite complicated elements that require time-consuming fabrication. Since the clamps are displaced parallel to the lid surface, they can mate only on the outer rim of the downwardly bent pot rim. At the same time, the result is a large effective lever arm for the attack of the internal pressure of the pot. For this reason, a pot having a wide rim must be designed to be suitably stable. In the known steam pressure cooker, the designed sliding of the clamps under spring pressure results in relatively high closing forces which in practice render the opening and closing operations more difficult. The closing and opening operations furthermore are inconvenient since one must push and rotate at the same time. Finally, the seal must have a high coefficient of friction in order to hold the frame in position relative to the pot. If oil or another lubricant get between seal and pot rim, the pot rim cannot be closed or opened.